Rogue Tricks: A Simple Eyebrow Tutorial to Boost your Charisma Stat!

Have you ever found yourself running from the results of a failed Intimidate or Diplomacy check and wondered: where did I go wrong? My Charisma stat is through the roof, I should be able to talk my way into or out of anything, and yet here I find myself, moving with unseemly haste, wondering if my reputation as the silver-tongued rogue is in jeopardy. How, Syl?! WHY?!?!

Well, I’ll tell you, fellow adventurer – it might be your brows.

Brows are a bit like shoes – people (and orcs) can make a surprising number of snap judgements about you based on the appearance of those two hairy caterpillars on your face. Often this can interefere with your Charisma-based skills so that your rolls go haywire. Fortunately, I have a patented rogue trick for you that will help you talk your way out of anything (obviously, you should try not to get caught in the first place – but everyone has an off day!).

Behold: the naked rogue brow:

The Naked rogue brow, complete with stragglers and stowaways on the browbone…

As you can see, there’s nothing too much wrong with it, other than it has kind of a thin, uniformly patchy texture. As far as shape goes, I’m leaving that to your personal preference – I was blessed with naturally OK shape, but we’re going to have to take care of those browbone strays…

Ah, done! Much better. Right: now to the incredibly complicated process of creating the perfect, naturally charisma-boosting brow! Ready?

Tools of the trade (lockpicks not pictured).Tweezers were used for eliminating the stowaways.

Take a suitable matte eyeshadow…(I love Lancôme’s Matte Eyeshadow in M204 Très Chocolat – you may find that the colour you want is darker or lighter or cooler or warmer than you think – try a few!)

Take a flat eyeshadow brush…

Press eyeshadow brush gently against shadow on both sides…

Stroke gently through brow with light, feathery strokes until desired depth of colour is achieved…

The After Brow, complete with rogueish eyebrow pop. This is an additional technique you should master and employ at every opportunity, by the way….

Ta da! Yes, as you can see, this is the kind of procedure that can be done anywhere, any time, for an instant lift to your intimidate and diplomacy checks. Maybe add a little more depth for intimidate, and a little more arch for diplomacy – I’ll leave the fine tuning up to you!

The nice thing about this technique is that it can probably be done with two items already in your makeup stash (especially if you’ve been in the recent ‘neutrals’ craze). If all you have is shimmer eyeshadows, consider investing in a matte one, or you may be able to shop your stash if you own matte bronzer/contour. If you have black brows, then you probably already have a matte black shadow or powder liner somewhere. Whatever your brow colour, try a few different things on one brow, then position yourself in some natural light and compare to the naked brow and to your general face/hair colour to see if you’re getting the effect you want.

Here’s my side-by side natural light comparison:

Left: before. Right: after. The difference really isn’t extreme when you stand back and look at the whole picture, but it gives a natural definition that is oh so useful when trying to convince the guards that they should totally let you inspect that vault…

Troubleshooting: oddly enough, the more pigmented the eyeshadow, the better. You use less, you don’t have to spend 10 minutes layering to see the effect, and eyeshadow is pretty forgiving as a medium – just wipe your finger over a too-dark brow to remove a layer or two of eyeshadow. I find that the effect stays in place for a whole day, although you may want to touch up/intensify if you want your brow look to go through the evening as well!

Your kitbag is more multipurpose than you might think, and this technique is approved for use while dodging goblin arrows or running from drangonflame. Really, you can do it anywhere to good effect.

I don’t bother with brow gels or other cream brow products, as I have yet to find one that doesn’t leave a kind of eerie, glossy finish that immediately screams I HAVE MAKEUP ON. This, however, is a personal preference. If you’ve found some good alternatives or general brow tricks, please do share them in the comments! :-D

Until next time, fellow adventurers, don’t forget to check for traps!

Syl

I am an adventuring rogue, not a mercenary for hire, and as such, all opinions expressed here are my own, based on a genuine fondness for/interest in this product. If you have any queries or suggestions, please do not hesitate to pin your parchment to the board (contact me) at thepaintedrogue [at] gmail [dot] com., or use the contact form provided! All images on this blog, are the property of the author of this blog (unless otherwise stated) and may not be reproduced without permission. If you do, I’ll send minotaurs after you. Crazed ones.

The brow-fill is good on you. I’m tempted to have a play with shadow on mine again, especially after I had to sharpen my trusty Crayon Sourcils the other day and now I’m wearing it back down to the optimum state. It hasn’t been quite as traumatic as I expected, but… oh, who am I kidding? Mybrowsaremooshyyyyyy… *sob*

Good eyebrows can reaaaaaaaally make the difference! I have very big bushy brows, so I need to spend a lot of time working on my brows to keep them in check and make them look all pretty and shizzle. When I look at back on old pictures, I really cringe… I look like a freakin’ cavewoman.

Most of the polishes used in this manicure. This is what happens when two PhD students try to do a manicure. Things get…complicated.

A choice of lipsticks for your Thief: my current favourite ‘nude for pale people’, Revlon’s Lacquer Balm in Demure; Bloom Charleston for a more tawny pink, and an old favourite MUFE #49 for the purple Queen of Beggars!

A wearable Zegana-inspired eye look for every day!

Pretty…but deadly?

The neon is hard to capture, but this recent picture probably does it best. The orcs will flee!

The incredibly photogenic Eilhana, with just enoughof her beauty on display, which is to say, just as much as she wants there to be.